It Must Have Been Love
by Artemisdesari
Summary: Post 3x17 look into Hook's head


_I have never written OUAT fic before. I never really felt the need, except that my daughter, at just under a year old, seems to prefer 80's music to all other music and suddenly I'm inspired by a song an hour. I'm also disturbed at how many of them I recognise even though I was born mid decade. I digress. Hook has wormed his way into my brain and apparently 80's power ballads make me think of him._

**_Disclaimer: _**_No, I don't own the lyrics at the end and I certainly don't own the show. If I did I promise you that a certain curse would not have happened, because I'm so tired of Hook and Emma dancing around each other and I just want them to jump into bed together and be happy. Is that really so much to ask?_

It Must Have Been Love.

This feeling that threatened to burst through him and consume him in flames was all at once familiar and unfamiliar. He had felt it before, he remembered feeling it, but it had never been this intense. With Milah it had burnt slowly, an ember in the darkness to be treasured and nurtured. Milah had seen the adventure in him, had accepted the pirate he was and had never asked the questions that he did not want to answer. Milah had kept him from becoming the monster that the name of Killian Jones brought to the minds and hearts of the sailors in the navy he had turned his back on. Without her darkness and a desperate thirst for revenge had consumed him more utterly than the flames of their love ever could have done.

Emma was different. As with Milah it had begun as lust, desire so gripping that he was all but powerless to resist even when he knew that he should. As with Milah it had grown and become something more than he had wanted to contemplate having. He had been wary of it, after all the woman he had loved had been ripped from him once before and Emma _had_ abandoned him at the top of a beanstalk at the mercy of a giant. Something about her called to his battered and broken heart. Something about her made the pieces want to knit themselves back together so that he could offer them to her. He hated the feeling and welcomed it all the same, it made him want to be better. It made him want to be worthy of her trust, her heart, her love, her life. It made him want to find Killian again. Not Captain Jones, certainly not Hook, but Lieutenant Killian Jones, the young man he had once been.

As much as he wanted to find that young man, however, too much time had passed. He had done too much, been too much a pirate, to become that naïve boy once more. The most wondrous thing of all was that Emma did not seem to want the Lieutenant or the Pirate Captain Hook. She saw _him_ and even though she saw the charmer and the ruthless pirate she saw through them to the man underneath. He intrigued her, he knew that he did, and yet she resisted the impulse and that made her all the more fascinating. Even his hook, something which had intimidated more than one woman over his three centuries of life, had been paid only the smallest notice; comments on it passed for Henry's sake and in the early days of their acquaintance but little more.

Perhaps had they given in to their desires early on, when they barely knew one another but lusted after each other all the same, it would have all come to nothing. He could have taken what he wanted, given her what she so obviously needed, and they could have parted ways never to think of one another in that manner again. Lust and desire would have not turned into longing and longing would not have turned into _this_.

One kiss had been all it had taken. One kiss to tell him that it was not lust, it was not simple desire, it was not that he had been too long without a female companion and a touch other than his own. One kiss had been all it had taken to tell him that he did not want one time, did not want to satisfy them both just once and have done with it. That kiss had made him think of forever and sailing the seas at her side and how had fancying her a bit turned into _that_? They had both been hurt, both been damaged by daring to love in the past and it had made her as wary as he.

Now, though, he could not help but think that he should have pushed a little bit harder. He could not help but think that he should not have taken a step back and continued to try to woo her, except that he had been thinking about what was best for Henry and it had become clear to him that he was so concerned over the boy because Emma meant so much to him.

They had shared one kiss, a kiss full of passion and need and revelation and now it was to be the only one that they had. It could be the only one because the witch had cursed his kiss. He felt it's pull whenever he was near Emma and it was torture like he had never known. He wanted to kiss her so badly and he knew that were he to do so he would destroy their chances of stopping Zelena and take away a part of Emma in the process. He would hurt her, hurt her family, and he would not do that. He could not do that because he loved her too much. He loved her and it hurt to pull away but he would, he would distance himself in person if not physically to keep her safe. That was all that mattered now, regardless of the past and the longing that flowed through him, all that was important was that she was safe.

_It must have been love but it's over now.  
It's all that I wanted, now I'm living without.  
It must have been love but it's over now.  
It's where the water flows, it's where the wind blows._


End file.
